Glenn Beck: Goodbye (almost) to Fox News

Glenn Beck is giving up his controversial daily rants on Fox News, in a friendly separation agreement announced Wednesday by the network and the Mt. Vernon-born pundit.

The agreement provides that Beck’s production company will do occasional work for Fox in the form of specials.

At his peak, in January of last year, Beck’s program drew an audience of 2.8 million. Ratings have since dropped by 40 percent. Still, Beck’s audience surpasses all other Cable News programs combined in his time slot.

But Beck’s conspiracy theories have drawn fire from fellow conservative pundits, and his allegation that President Obama is a racist prompted an advertising boycott.

“More than 300 advertisers fled the Beck show, but he still delivered a huge lead-in audience for Bret Baier and others who followed him on the Fox lineup,” Howard Kurtz wrote in the Daily Beast.

Roger Ailes, the former Republican political consultant who chairs Fox News, said: “Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody’s standards. I look forward to continuing to work for him.”

But Michael Keegan, president of the liberal People for the American Way, took a different take on the Beck-Fox separation.

“It’s encouraging to know it is no longer economically viable for a major TV network to support the demagogic rantings of its most unhinged conspiracy theorist,” said Keegan.

Beck drew thousands of people to a rally at the Lincoln Memorial last summer.

Beck is known for fiery denunciations of two progressive presidents of the early-20th Century, Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. He recently had to apologize for likening Reform Judaism to radical Islam. He reacted to Egypt’s mass protests by warning of a Middle East caliphate embracing both Islamic radicals and communists.

He has been a daily fixture of Fox for less than three years after being hired away from CNN, but effused upon his departure, saying Wednesday: “I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News. I cannot repay Roger for the lessons I’ve learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership.”

Beck will produce “projects” for Fox, said the release, and will give up his daily show “later this year.”